


Perception

by Sanjuno



Category: Wolverine (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: A Wolverine with all his memories is a Wolverine who listens to Cyclops, ANARCHY!, Cyclops does not appreciate being made to revisit his teenage years, Cyclops does not have time for this shit, Cyclops hates the government, Cyclops is gonna win all the things, Cyclops survived X3, Dark Phoenix still loved her husband, Fuck the timeline, GDI Phoenix you could at least have left the man on the far side of puberty, Is it still a conspiracy theory if it's proven to be true?, M/M, Multi, Mutant puberty is hell, Nowhere is safe when you're a marvel mutant, Safer, So she booted him somewhere safe, Stryker and Shaw make their plays at the same time, This is the man who founded Utopia, Wolverine is a romantic sap, the more you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:35:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5185484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanjuno/pseuds/Sanjuno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Phoenix is the Avatar of Fire, and Life Incarnate. When she chooses not to kill the first one to stand against her, the only remaining choice is to see Scott Summers reborn somewhere less... inconvenient for her plans.</p><p>The man called Cyclops expected the creature wearing his wife's face to kill him. Except Jean still loved him, so she sent him far away to a place where he could not oppose her... and therefore never force her to kill him. Now people who should be dead are still alive, events are taking place in the wrong order and at the wrong points in history, and Cyclops just wants to avoid seeing things fall apart all over again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scott Disapproves of the Phoenix Method of Problem Solving

**Author's Note:**

> Cyclops travels through time and lives alternate lives a lot. It's a thing. This is my version of that thing for MCU. So now, Ladies and Gentlemen... I give you the one, true leader of the X-Men.

“It’s alright, Scott. Trust me.” Jean’s voice held a smile, and Scott could feel the warmth of her, so gloriously alive against his skin and in his mind. “Open your eyes, Scott.”

He loved her, he trusted her – and more than anything, he wanted to believe her – to believe _in_ her. In her words and her survival and in the selfish hope that one day he would be able to look at her without a distorting layer of ruby-quartz between them. He wanted to know if her eyes were as green as his frail memory and imagination had painted them.

Scott could feel her fingers – so gentle on his face.

“Please, Scott.” The whisper of Jean’s breathing feathered across his lips.

Scott swallowed his nervousness and opened his eyes.

Colour. For the first time in decades. Grey-brown stone, brown and white and black bark, blue-green-grey mosses, clear water reflecting forest and brilliant blue sky and white clouds and her. Auburn hair and fair skin and pleased green eyes. “Jean.”

“Oh, Scott.” Pink lips curving in a happy smile, her eyes glittered.

“You...” Scott blinked, overwhelmed by sight and the breaking of his heart. “You aren’t Jean.”

She blinked in surprise – just once – then anger and outrage darkened her eyes, twisted her expression into something savage as she hissed. “How did you _know_?”

“Jean wouldn’t have been standing in front of me.” Scott stepped back, retreating in devastated horror. Whoever this woman was – she sounded like Jean, was in his head like Jean – but she _was not **Jean**_. “She wouldn’t have risked it. She knew how much it would kill me to hurt her, even by accident.”

“Clever boy.” As terrifying as she was, she was still beautiful when she smiled. “A pity. You’re a little _too_ clever, and a little too brave for me to let you go.”

“What do you mean?” Scott shifted his weight as things – rocks, branches, water – started to move, spiralling around the still center where the two of them stood facing each other. One more mark against her. Jean did not have that kind of mass control over her telekinesis. She had been too wary of her own power to ever try. He had to keep her talking, keep her distracted, or his chances of making it away from the lakeshore alive did not look good. The sudden surge of adrenaline – the realization that he _wanted_ to survive, to _live_ – it took Scott by surprise.

“Even now, you’re thinking about how to stop me.” Not-Jean tilted her head and smiled, smiled the way _his_ Jean had smiled when Scott had done something that had impressed and charmed her. “Oh, my love, I cannot let you, but how _perfect_ you are. I cannot kill you; I love you too much to have the will for it.”

“... What will you do with me then? What other options do you have?” That... was not the smartest thing he could have said, but Scott had _never_ had an enemy declare their love and inability to kill him in the same breath as a threat before.

“I will have to send you away.” The not-Jean mused, walking closer with a seductive sway his Jean had never used. Scott found he was frozen in place, unable to retreat thanks to familiar feeling of a telekinetic grip.

“I’ll come back.” Scott warned her as she pressed up against him in a parody of a loving embrace. “It doesn’t matter where you send me – I’ll find a way back.”

“No...” She murmured it against his lips, low and soft like an afterglow confession. “No, you won’t”

Scott closed his eyes to block out the sight of her face as she pressed her mouth against his more firmly. The world dissolved – it hurt, like nothing he had _ever_ felt before – and Scott tumbled down into a darkness that should have been familiar.

/.../

Scott’s whole body hurt. Not the sharp heat of battle-earned wounds, but the dull, pervasive ache that he had felt only a few times over the course of his entire life. Scott only ever felt this way when he was running low on the energy that fuelled his optic beams – when he went too long without sunlight.

Something was wrong.

Without thinking twice, Scott opened his eyes.

White – blinding white and surgical steel. He was in an operating theatre. Scott sat up, twisting his wrists free of the badly secured straps without thinking twice about the action, and turned his head to face the surprised looking man in a lab coat.

A lab coat and not surgical scrubs. A single man, no nurses, no anaesthesiologist – just the pale, dark haired man holding a needle. The back of Scott’s head throbbed, the familiar hot slide of blood moved down his neck.

Scott narrowed his eyes at the man he had never learned the name of, but recognized immediately anyway. Second only to Jack Winters in his nightmares, this was the man who had robbed Scott of the ability to control his mutant powers. A man who had done who-knows-what to Scott as a child. A man Scott realized only later his foster father had sold him too. A man who had worked for the government, catching and experimenting on mutants to see how they worked under the cover of the state-run hospital that cared for orphaned children. The man who had worked for Stryker senior long before Stryker junior had attacked the Mansion. Charles had never said it outright, but Scott knew that Erik had killed this man. Next to the memory of his parents and Jean, it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him. It was the reason Scott could never bring himself to fight all-out against the man who had become Magneto.

Scott did not know how or why it was possible for this man to be standing over him again, all he knew was that there was no way in Hell he was just going to lie here and let that sadist cut him apart until he fell into a coma a second time.

“No. Never again.” Scott only had one shot, but one shot was all he needed. The optic blast was weak – weak compared to a full strength blow that could level mountains – but it was more than enough to vaporise the man and remove a few walls.

Scott stumbled as he tried to run, finally settling into an unsteady trot. Something was wrong with his body, with his legs, something beyond his continued ability to control his optic blasts (and _oh_ the irony in that statement _burned_ ) – but that would have to wait until after he had escaped.

Scott slammed into a door as alarms started to blare, the haze falling away from his mind as adrenaline and training took over the instinctive urge to flee from a threat.

Cyclops pushed aside his pain and weariness as he straightened up and looked through the small window set in the door. Another lab, less surgically sterile and more experimentally macabre, with a strange glass coffin filled with some not-water liquid, draped in tubes and monitors, and an extremely bloody, completely naked, incandescently angry Wolverine.

“Oh, fuck me.” Cyclops groaned, and allowed himself a single moment of existential angst before he slammed through the door.


	2. James is not yet Wolverine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Speed is the name of the game when escaping from secret military bases preforming illegal human experimentation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're running...

**(In which James is not yet Wolverine.)**

**=/=**

James grit his teeth against the scream building in his chest. He had not thought it was possible to hurt this much and still be alive. To be honest, tough guy reputation aside, he would really have preferred to remain living in ignorance of that little fact. Just because the wounds healed fast did not mean that he failed to feel the pain of said wounds when they were inflicted or when they were healing.

Breaking out was a relief. He would have taken any excuse by the time they finished with whatever they were trying to do to him. That they obviously deserved everything he was going to do to them was just a bonus because it meant he could snarl and shout and let the red-hued rage rise up between him and the pain, walling it away behind the instinct of fight or flight.

The door burst open before he was finished with the guards and Wolverine snarled as he prepared for the arrival of more enemies. A teenage boy in a white hospital gown, blood leaking from neat-edged slices in his face to soak the collar crimson, was unexpected enough to pause the fight.

“Wolverine! _Down_!” James dropped without thinking about it, the sheer _command_ packed into a single word triggering his reflexes without any input from higher thought. How the kid knew the call sign James had picked less than an hour ago, or how the boy had come to be here in the middle of a secret military complex… those were questions James could ask later.

Red light flashed overhead, and explosions erupted throughout the room as chemicals met and mixed and spilled over electronic equipment to react with sparks and machine-gun loud explosive bangs. Hands on his arm, sweat and blood and sunlight in his nose, James moved in the direction he was pulled and ignored the torturous burn in his too-heavy bones. The bright spots faded from his eyes, and the two mutants ran hell for leather as the military complex burst into flames around them.

=/=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bleh, it's not much to look at, but Logan's escape in Origins was pretty cut and dry too. So.
> 
> ...
> 
> Yes, BTW, Logan is, in point of fact, still naked while escaping.
> 
> Just in case you were wondering. ♥


	3. More than ought, less than needed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott is half the age he should be and roughly forty years in the past. He isn't even _conceived_ yet. Something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
> 
> It's actually comforting to have Wolverine around. _That's how wrong things are._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeaaaah, so " _Wolverine: Origins_ " and " _X-Men: First Class_ " happen during the same time frame, but they and " _X-Men: 1-2-3_ " take place in different timelines for the purposes of this fic. I've also made the "kidnapped from his High School Scott" nearly twenty, because I need him to be able to big brother FC!Alex.

**(In which Scott knows more than he ought but not as much as he needs.)**

Scott Summers was experiencing something akin to emotional whiplash. Now that the adrenaline rush had begun to fade, his confusion and grief had come creeping back in to set up house with exhaustion and pain. Only the company of a nearly-feral Wolverine was keeping the inevitable panic attack at bay.

Jean was dead, and worse, there was something out there wearing her face that could trick even their long-established psychic bond. If Scott had not leavened his initial hope with a healthy portion of paranoia and cynicism then who knows what that imposter could have accomplished with unfiltered access to his memories? She certainly had not hesitated to dispose of Scott once he realized what she was.

The upside of the situation he found himself in was that Scott was fairly certain that he was still alive. No Heaven he could imagine had ever contained a naked Wolverine. There was still a small to medium chance that Scott was in Hell, but considering the lack of Jack Winters or Essex in the vicinity Scott was going to assume that he was still among the living. (Wolverine was _far_ better company than the men who starred in Scott’s nightmares, no matter how much of an ass the man was being.)

So, still among the living then… and in the year 1962 according to the both the slim file Scott had pocketed on his way out of the facility, and the newspapers found in the barn Wolverine had dragged them into once they had shaken off pursuit. Scott scowled and threw a blanket at Wolverine’s huddled form. Chalk white and non verbal, this textbook shock reaction to whatever experiment Scott had pulled Wolverine out of was the closest to a ‘normal’ side effect of trauma that Scott had ever seen Wolverine exhibiting. The feral mutant had yet to even start his usual machismo-laden fronting, and it was enough to throw Scott off. Thus, the blanket, which smelt very strongly of horse even to Scott’s unenhanced nose, but there was not way Scott was putting up with Wolverine’s naked ass for any longer than was strictly necessary.

“You’re being ridiculous.” Scott tartly informed the other mutant as Logan snarled from his hiding place in an empty box stall. Turning back to the newspapers he had collected with obnoxiously blithe unconcern about having Wolverine at his back. Some might call the action foolish, but Scott had made something of a study of how Wolverine operated. Forty years in the past or not, as long as Scott remained calm and refrained from attacking first, Wolverine would posture and growl but would not actually make a move to hurt him. “Do you remember how they caught you? Do you know what they wanted you for or what they were doing to you?”

“… What?” Wolverine looked both confused and shocked, the vulnerable combination of emotions sitting strange on his face when Scott was used to the man constantly being some level of smug. Scott put the newspapers aside and met the other mutant’s searching gaze with a lifted eyebrow. “What are ya talking about? How the hell did a kid get into a secure military facility? Ya ain’t even old enough ta enlist.”

“… I’m older than I look.” Deliberately ignoring Wolverine’s other questions, Scott looked away. The younger mutant had a bad feeling. It was 1962, which was _ridiculous_. Scott had been _conceived_ this year. Yet the height he was standing at would place Scott at physically eighteen, maybe nineteen depending on the month. Which matched the data in the file. According to the file Scott had stolen, he had been taken from his High School and there had yet to be any sort of official notice taken. The American Child Welfare System was less then attentive in 1962, especially of a boy about to age out of the system. It was strange to be this age again and not be suffering from migraines or need his visor. Whatever Jean’s imposter had done to Scott’s head to fix the old brain damage was holding, and Scott was itching to practice his control without the automatic filtering provided by his visor. Furthermore, as far as Scott remembered, at eighteen he had been two years into the four year coma Essex had put Scott into after Winters beat him for refusing to use his powers to rob a bank. Something had obviously gone even more wrong with the progression of events than the altered dates if Scott was escaping from a Weapon X facility instead of trapped in Essex’s hospice. “That’s beside the point. Do you, or do you not, know what the military flatscans were trying to accomplish?”

(Scott would feel guilty about using prejudiced language _later_. Right now he was tired and grieving and irritated by everything from the blood in his hairline to the hay clinging to the hems of his thin hospital patient pants.)

“Flatscans?” Wolverine eyed Scott strangely (and… right. Mutant Rights Extremists had not started using ‘Flatscans’ as a racist term for unpowered human until the mid-nineties.) The feral mutant adjusted his blanket for decency and seemed to recover his equilibrium. “Look, kid, I haven’t got a fucking clue about what Stryker’s up ta.”

“Stryker? As in General William Stryker?” Scott flinched, one hand going up to his neck and the series of deeply dug scars that had not been carved there yet. There was no way Wolverine missed the motion, the obvious vulnerability, but that was irrelevant at this time. Stryker was actively hunting mutants even this long ago? “Which god did you offend to get on that sadist’s radar?”

An odd expression settled on Wolverine’s face as he sat up straight and examined Scott more carefully. “I used ta work for him about six or so years back.”

“You?” Of all the things Wolverine could have said, Scott had not been expecting _that_. The knowledge that Wolverine had _followed Stryker’s commands_ completely eclipsed the realization that Wolverine _remembered his past_. “You worked for _him_? Willingly? Do you have any idea what that man does to mutants? Are you insane or just _actively suicidal_? Oh god, fuck. Please don’t tell me you were there _willingly_. I saw you fighting them, I thought… shit. I need to get out of here.”

“Hey! Sit yer ass back down, kid.” Scott’s panic seemed to have broken through to Wolverine, clearing out the last of the odd complacency the feral had been displaying since their escape. “Yeah, I volunteered, but Stryker betrayed me. I ain’t doing nothing for the man who had my wife murdered.”

“… Oh.” Scott sat down and tried to remember how to breathe. Wolverine was still trustworthy within reason, that was good. Scott was about one more complication away from a full bore tantrum. With a groan, Scott scrubbed his hands through his hair, shuddering as crusted blood flaked off under the assault. “Christ, this is so messed up.”

“Yer telling me that?” Wolverine snorted and looked down at his hands as metal-sheathed claws flashed out and back in. “Ya talk like ya know what Stryker gets up ta. Know anything about this?”

“It’s Adamantium, one of the strongest metals in the world. Only Vibranium and some extraterrestrial alloys match up to it. The process has injected the metal into your bones and presumably coated your entire skeleton.” Scott paused in his explanation and smirked, a thought occurring to him as he internalized the knowledge that this Wolverine was new to his upgraded natural weaponry. “Check your teeth before you try to eat anything. Adamantium does bad things to _steel_ , I imagine it does worse things to flesh. Your healing factor will be slower than you’re used to while you’re dealing with the process of integrating the metal from the implants more evenly into your skeletal structure. Once that’s done, your healing factor will be working constantly due to the heavy metal poisoning as well as making constant repairs to the muscle and ligament damage the extra weight is going to cause you. Growing your tongue back would take a while if you accidently bit through it right now.”

Wolverine was staring, brow furrowed in thought and cheek moving as he investigated metal coated teeth. Feral mutations tended to produce sharper teeth as a matter of course, adding Adamantium caps to that was just serious overkill. “… I’ll take that under advisement, kid.”

“Call me Scott Summers if you’re going to insist on being familiar.” Scott snorted, knowing the chances of Wolverine wanting to be formal were less than zero. “Cyclops if you like call signs. Slim Dayspring if we need to go undercover.”

“James Howlett, since yer so interested in names.” Wolverine smirked and leaned back against the wall. “Ya can call me whatever yer comfortable with, kid.”

Scott gazed levelly at the other mutant, mind racing with memories of their future games of one-upmanship, and Scott smirked back without hesitation. “Sure thing, _Wolvie_. Now, how about you fill me in on the specifics of your interactions with Stryker, and I’ll try to come up with a plan that will keep us both alive.”

Wolverine narrowed his eyes at Scott, but started talking after a moment without any further argument. Scott appreciated the cooperation even as it stood out as one more sign that he was in completely uncharted territory. Even so, Scott was much too exhausted to deal with a stubborn Wolverine right now. Make plans for survival first, have a screaming nervous breakdown later.

Sound plan. Scott could work with that.

=/=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scott is confused. He is the _most_ confused but WOLVERINE WILL NEVER KNOW. Scott is _ice_ he has _Got This_ okay FUCK ALL THIS BULLSHIT SCOTT IS MAKING A PLAN AND IT WILL BE A GOOD PLAN AND YOU ASSHOLES WILL FOLLOW. THE PLAN.
> 
> ^_^;;


	4. From Then Until The Never Since

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We make choices every day. Some for the better, some for the worse. We learn, eventually, to live with those choices. We learn to live with the mistakes we make.
> 
> Some choices are anything but _mistakes_. Some choices create miracles.
> 
> Choose your path. Walk on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you all that I'd be back. *throws confetti*
> 
> *In best Swedish Chef voice* And now I begin to derail the plot! ♥

=/=

**(Logan picks up on a minor point of interest that forcefully reminds Scott that he’s in the past and while he _does_ have the benefit of hindsight in this situation some of his information is useless because it’s not relevant _yet_. Or, you know, _at all_.)**

“Stryker’s a Major.” The shakes have eased off enough for Wolverine to stand, grimacing as cramping muscles frayed and tore and healed all in seconds, and _still_ doing his best to be a pain in Scott’s ass.

It took a moment for Scott to pull his thoughts away from putting together a contingency plan from scratch. It was _irritating_ being so far back in the past that even the bare minimum of survival caches that the Professor had put together way back before finding Scott and founding the Institute were not yet in existence.

Scott blinked at the large hand waving in front of his nose and batted it away from his face. “What?”

“Durin’ yer little rant earlier, ya called Stryker a General.” Wolverine took a step back now that he had Scott’s attention. “But he ain’t. Stryker’s just a Major.”

“Oh. I should’ve thought of that.” Scott frowned, his thoughts racing. Of _course_ Stryker was not a General. Not _yet_. Not way back in the early sixties.

Gaining rank took time, took more time the higher in rank you _got_. Mutant Hysteria would not really kick off until the mid eighties, and only started getting _really_ bad in the late nineties. Before then, Styker would be confined to operations like Wolverine had described his Unit taking. Plausible deniability of accountability meant plausible denial for _accolades_ too. Since he was so _obsessed_ with mutants and their _uses_ Stryker’s promotions would come slower than usual until the U.S. Government had their collective panic attack and demanded that someone _deal_ with the mutant threat.

Fucking Magneto and his fucking Brotherhood and his fucking _useless_ macho posturing. The man had lived through the Holocaust, you would think _the overdramatic asshole_ would _know better_. Segregation was _never_ the answer. Stupid, stupid, stupid blind _short-sighted_ assholes the whole lot of them.

Had none of them paid _any_ attention during a _single_ civil rights movement over the last (next? Scott knew this temporal confusion was going to get old _fast_ ) fifty years? The first step was _always_ making your party look sympathetic and earnest, _not_ a threat to the established world order. Power structures _did not like_ threats to the status quo. Morons. Why did Scott never get to fight _intelligent_ enemies?

No, wait. There was Essex. And Stryker. Scott took it back, please continue giving him meathead opponents. One of Essex and Stryker each was enough for a _lifetime_ , thank you, Universe.

A thick finger poked Scott in the ribs, and once again he smacked Wolverine’s hand away. What was this asshole’s problem with letting Scott think in peace? Oh right, time travel bullshit changing his established intel packets. “I need to pay better attention.”

It was time to stop being confused and hesitant. Scott Summers could grieve everything he had lost ( _he had lost **everything**. Everything about the world had **changed** without warning_ ) later. He could mourn his losses _later_.

Right now it was time to be _Cyclops_. It was time to do what he had been _trained_ his whole life to do. Cyclops needed a plan, and then he needed to move. Given the way the world worked, they would be gathering mutants along the way regardless of what they planned for.

Cyclops would do his job, would _protect_ innocent people from a world that hated and feared them.

Cyclops would _lead_.

/…/

New information processed and catalogued, and the kid proceeded to fall right back into his head. James had seen this sort of hyper-focus before, in tacticians in the middle of an engagement gone FUBAR, scrambling to salvage the situation and pull together enough scraps for a plan. North had gotten like this sometimes too, when the sniper was in the middle of tracking a target down or planning how to run an op.

Watching the kid think, James could actually believe that Summers was older than he looked. Hell, James was turning _one hundred and seventeen_ this year, and he _barely_ looked thirty. So what if the kid looked like too-pretty jailbait? There were all _sorts_ of freaks out there, and James still had not seen what the kid’s power was.

Something to do with the eyes, if he was pressed to guess. Summers had the best poker face James had ever _seen_. That jaw might as well have been carved from granite, but the eyes…

James could see in the dark, so the flickers of red light over the blue of Summer’s narrowed eyes, there and gone like the flash of sunlight off signal mirrors, was _easy_ to spot from this close up. They would need to cover those peepers if they wanted to avoid notice.

Footsteps outside. Heavy, probably male, trying to be quiet. Weighted on one side, the guy was carrying. Probably a rifle. Only one on approach. Not Victor, not with a gun. North would never get this close. Stryker knew better than to send only one man in. The farmer?

“Company.” James warned, and watched in fascination as Summers snapped his attention back to the real world. Red gleamed, Summers’ gaze raking over James, seeming to read what James had sensed off his body language, and rapid-fire calculations took place.

“Sit back down. Play up the shock. Let me do the talking.” Summers moved so he was partially blocked by a support beam, still in easy reach of cover but also in line of sight with the door. James sat down right where he was, not wanting to waste time on an argument but still not ready to let the kid out of reach if bullets were about to start flying.

He was just in time.

The muzzle of a shotgun (and James had guessed right. It _was_ the farmer) edged open the door James had broken through earlier, and the weathered greybeard followed after the weapon. Squinted eyes went shocked and appalled as they took in the sorry states of the two men hiding in the barn.

James wounds had all healed by now, but he was naked and filthy. Summers had dried blood all down his face, and the paper-thin pants the kid had on were ripped and charred almost beyond use.

“Hi.” Summers sounded as young as he looked. Young and scared and in need of protection. James could see the old farmer relax, and as much as pity grated on James’ pride, it was useful in this situation. _Anything_ was worth it at this point, as long as it got James some pants. Summers glanced nervously at the shotgun and flinched back. “Um. Sorry! Sorry about, um, about trespassing, sir. My cousin and I got into a, a bit of, um, trouble while we were hiking. Um. I, I don’t suppose you have a phone? That we could use?”

“… You two got into some kinda stupid mess, didn’t ya?” The old man snorted and lowered his gun. “C’mon in then. We got enough old things in storage ta get ya both kitted out, and I suspect the missus will want ta feed ya.”

“Thank you, sir.” A shy smile, a quick flick of fingers that told James to play along, and Summers made a show of helping James stand up. Huh, that was actually a good idea. Summers looked like a kid, unthreatening, but James was an ex-military logger and _looked it_ , so implying that James was hurt enough to need help moving around was a good way to ease the old man’s fears without saying anything. Summers was _good_ at this, and still talking. “We, uh, we wouldn’t want to put you out, sir. But, um, but some new pants? Would be nice. Um, it’d be nice of you. Thanks.”

“Think nothin’ of it, son. Just doin’ the right thing.” The old man smiled and held the door open for the two mutants as they hobbled out of the barn. “Ya’ll can pay me back by helpin’ me fix this door, later.”

/…/

Dressed and clean, James took a moment to look at his teeth in the bathroom mirror. The enamel had a metallic shine now, and James recalled Summers warnings from earlier. When he unsheathed his claws, now _also_ coated in silver-white metal, James was careful not to touch anything. The curved inner sides used to look like elongated cat claws, only _really_ sharp at the point. There was a razor-fine edge that started about halfway up the claw now, which was… new.

New and unsettling.

James did not like it. Was angry that he had let himself be _used_ by Stryker to the point of being changed. The bones claws had been a little _weird_ , yeah, but not _nearly_ as unnatural as the metal knives James had now. Claws were just claws. _Lots_ of predators had claws.

Knives were weapons. James had already _refused_ to be nothing more than Stryker’s weapon, and it galled him that he had been so blinded by his grief that he had let Stryker turn him into something Kayla would have hated.

James needed to calm down.

… Good thing the kid had a cool head. James had the feeling he was going to be needing that voice of reason for awhile.

Withdrawing the claws proved Summers right again. The punctures left behind took long enough to heal over that there was blood left behind. Not much, but that had never been the case _before_ the metal. So, James’ healing rate _had_ been slowed down.

How the _hell_ had Summers known this would happen?

/…/

Thank god for Summers and his paranoia.

They were up and outside by first light, trying to avoid bringing trouble down on the kind old couple who had helped them out. James was eager to get Summers alone so he could grill the kid for what _Summers_ knew about what was going on. It was only fair. So they were up and moving early.

Early, but not soon _enough_.

James heard the rotors, turned, saw the sniper. _Knew_ that it was impossible to block the shot. Started running _anyway_. Had to _try_ , they were innocent! This was why James had _left_ Stryker’s fucking team of fucking butchers!

Summers looked up. Blinked.

Red light struck, struck out. A beam, a lance that hit the helicopter.

Cut _through_ it.

The explosion bloomed, hard and fast and _violent_. Nothing left of the helicopter but dust and shrapnel.

The couple was staring, clutching each other as James stumbled back to his feet. He looked away from the fearful civilians huddled on the ground.

Caught Summers’ mild, patient gaze. Weighed his choices, his options. Figured he had a good chance of having Summers’ help simply due to proximity at this point.

Thought about Victor catching one of those blasts with his smug murdering _face_. Enjoyed that mental image so much he thought about it a second time.

Grinned, and sauntered over to Summers side with one last glance at where the helicopter _used_ to be. “Where to now, boss?”

Bemusement flickered over Summers’ face. The expression was there and gone almost too fast for James to appreciate _finally_ breaking through the kid’s stone façade. “… You said you still had leads to follow up on?”

“Yep.” James fell into step easy as breathing when Summers turned, heading away from the farm.

“Then we’ll use those for now.” Summers face went grim. “I’m operating on out of date information. I need new intel.”

“Can do.” James was actually looking forward to this. Summers might have the bitch face to end all bitch faces, but the kid was damn useful to have on your side in more ways than one. “Got an old contact or two who should be able to give us somethin’.”

“Good.” Someone had trained Summers, and done it _right_. The kid had the ground eating stride that would let a man cover distance and still keep moving all day. Summers glanced over, the look in his eyes taking James measure. James let him. After all, James had been doing his own fair share of judging the kid during this fiasco, so it was only fair to let Summers take his own turn at passing judgement. Summers snorted, rolling his shoulders. “We’re going to need transport. Preferably soon.”

The kid _really_ knew what he was doing. This was James’ territory and Summers had already admitted to compromised intel (and a head wound) so he was leaving the _means_ of acquiring transportation to James. Delegation was the sign of a good commander, and a good tactician, (and indicated a level of trust that James appreciated. Wanted to live up to. _Damn_ , the kid was good at this.)

James must have been _really_ good this year. Christmas had come early.

Victor would never know what hit him.

With a vicious grin, James scented the air, searching for the tell-tale burn of gasoline fumes and booze. “I should be able to fix that, boss.”

=/=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't intend to take turns flipping between Scott and Logan's PoVs but the difference between Scott's _screaming inner flailing monologue_ and the poker faced Ops Commander that Logan is picking up on is perhaps one of the most entertaining things I've ever experienced while writing these ridiculous children.
> 
> So anyway yeah, speaking of children, Logan's accepted as given that Scott's _much_ older than he looks but Logan's 117 years old at this point in his life and _he remembers all of it_. So. Logan calls _everyone_ kid. Hell, at some point Logan is probably going to start calling Erik 'brat' and _never stop_ because the only person in the _world_ who is older than Logan at this point is Victor.
> 
> Which, in regards to the future of Logan and Scott hooking up means that Logan has _long_ since gotten over his cradle-robbing themed sexuality crisis.

**Author's Note:**

> Starting in the early 2000's, public opinion went through a dramatic shift that promoted the antihero over the more classic archetype. The anti-authority loner became more popular than the team captain. This mindset is a large part of why the three X-Men movies focused almost exclusively on Wolverine's part of the story, and why Cyclops was shunted aside and his part in the story reduced to little more than a target for Wolverine's ridicule.
> 
> I love Wolverine.
> 
> Wolverine is not the X-Men. 
> 
> Cyclops, more than any one single character, is the X-Men. He is their face and their focus. He was the first. The best. The one who stood the longest. Then the movies reduced him to... I don't even have words for it. They took a strong, grounded leader and turned him into child convinced the quarterback was gonna steal his girlfriend.
> 
> This made me very mad. So I wrote shamelessly self-indulgent fanfic glorifying Scott Summers. I realize that my reaction is in no way proportionate to anything resembling maturity, but at least none of you bore witness to the tantrum I threw in the theatre at the end of X3.


End file.
